Psalm 109:4

Verse 4. I prayer. The Messiah says in this prophetic psalm, "I am prayer." During his pilgrimage on earth, his whole life was communion with God; and now in his glory, he is constantly making intercession for us. But this does not exhaust the idea, "I am prayer." He not merely prayed and is now praying, he not merely teaches and influences us to pray, but he is prayer, the fountain and source of all prayer, as well as the foundation and basis of all answers to our petitions. He is the Word in this sense also. From all eternity his Father heard him, heard him as interceding for that world which, created through him, he represented, and in which, through him, divine glory was to be revealed. In the same sense, therefore, in which he is light and gives light, in which he is life and resurrection, and therefore quickens, Jesus is prayer. --Adolph Saphir, in Lectures on the Lord's Prayer, 1870.

Verse 4. Persecuted saints are men of prayer, yea, they are as it were made up all of prayer. David prayed before; but, oh, when his enemies fell a persecuting of him, then he gave himself up wholly to prayer. Oh, then he was more earnest; more fervent, more frequent, more diligent, more constant, and more abundant in the work of prayer! When Numa, king of the Romans, was told that his enemies were in arms against him, he did but laugh at it, and answered, "And I do sacrifice"; so when persecutors arm themselves against the people of God, they do but divinely smile and laugh at it, and give themselves the more up to prayer. When men arm against them, then they arm themselves with all their might to the work of prayer; and woe, woe to them that have armies of prayers marching against them. --Thomas Brooks.

Verse 4. I give myself unto prayer. The instruction to ourselves from these words is most comforting and precious. Are we bowed down with sorrow and distress? "I give myself unto prayer." Are we persecuted, and reviled, and compassed about with words of hatred? "I give myself unto prayer." Has death entered our dwellings? And as we gaze in heart-broken anguish on the no longer answering look of one who was our earthly stay, and we feel as if all hope as well as all help were gone, still there remains the same blessed refuge for all the Lord's sorrowing ones, "I give myself unto prayer." In the allegory of the ancients. Hope was left at the bottom of the casket, as the sweetener of human life; but God, in far richer mercy, gives prayer as the balm of human trial. --Barton Bouchier.

Verse 4. A Christian is all over prayer: he prays at rising, at lying down, and as he walks: like a prime favourite at court, who has the key to the privy stairs, and can wake his prince by night. --Augustus Montague Toplady, 1740-1778.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 4. On the excellency of prayer. See Expository Notes.

Verse 4. Our Lord's adversaries, and his resort.

Verse 4-5.